Involuntary
by Grac3
Summary: Part three of the Volens!Verse. "A vampire has been feeding off of Molly."
1. Prologue - Ambush

**A.N.:** So this is the third part of the volens!verse, and this one is another three-shot.

**Disclaimer: Don't own Sherlock**

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Prologue – Ambush

Contrary to popular belief, the morgue was not a scary place. People are often moved to fear by places where the dead reside, but that was a fear that she had never found herself subject to; death was part of life, just like taxes. The guests lying in drawers along the wall of the morgue had never frightened her – after all, it was not the dead whom people should fear; it was the living, and those capable of creating the dead.

She watched from the shadows as she worked the late shift, completely unaware that she was not alone. The poor girl had been doing a lot of late shifts lately; bad news for the girl, but excellent news for the woman watching; a tired victim could more easily be caught unawares. Maybe she was already botching her autopsy report, and if she wasn't even focussed on that which was right in front of her, then the girl had no hope of detecting the presence of the woman who was hiding in the shadows watching her every moment, whose fangs were elongating in her mouth as she did so…

She was _hungry_.

Not hungry enough to drive her to kill someone, but hungry enough that her self-control was waning considerably. She didn't have a volens, which – considering the situation that she had found herself in – was not the best of ideas. This lack of a willing blood supply was not for lack of offers, and indeed there was one whose blood she had so desperately wanted to taste that she had almost accepted.

But she had learned not to mix her true nature with her work; it may end with some awkward questions. Besides, she had no time for such frivolous things as _permission_ to feed; she was much more suited to hunting, to taking what she needed from whoever happened to have it: and right now, the girl had what she needed.

She watched closely as the girl closed her file and put it in a drawer. She had turned away from her, but the woman could still see her rub her eyes in an effort to stay awake. If she would only move closer to the supply cupboard, closer to where the predator anxiously awaited her pray…

The girl pulled another file out of the drawer and took it to her desk. The woman had to try very hard not to growl in frustration. She wouldn't be able to keep her self-control in check for much longer.

In the silence of the morgue, she could almost hear the girl's heart beating…

The girl groaned tiredly, slapping the file shut violently. It would seem that her fatigue had finally caught up with her, and she was calling it a night. Shoving the file back into the drawer and slamming the metal door shut, she turned swiftly on her heel and made to leave, heading for the door to the corridor beyond. With each step, she was nearing the supply cupboard – nearing where she was lying in wait.

When the girl was within arm's reach, the woman emerged from the shadows and grabbed her by the arm, slapping a hand over her mouth and dragging her backwards into the supply cupboard.

The girl tried to struggle against her. It was almost funny.

When they were both inside the cupboard, the woman closed the door, plunging them into darkness. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light quickly, for she spent a vast amount of her time in the dark.

When the girl's deep, rapid, panicked breathing had begun to slow, the woman carefully removed her hand from her mouth. The girl let out a frightened moan, but the woman slammed her back against the shelves of the cupboard, effectively silencing her.

"Wh-" the girl gasped, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she saw clearly for the first time the woman who was standing before her. "You!" she breathed, her eyes filled with horror and confusion.

The woman placed a finger on the girl's lips and waited for her to lapse into silence once more. When the girl had quietened, the woman lowered her hand to her side, smirked, and struck.

The girl gasped in pain as the fangs tore into her flesh, sinking deep into the blood vessel and letting out the delicious crimson. It flowed into the woman's mouth, sweet and wonderful. The girl's pain manifested itself in vocalisations, and as they increased in volume to near screams, the vampire reasoned that she should attempt to quieten her; while she had not seen any one in the surrounding corridors when she had snuck in, it would never do to risk being heard.

She shifted her teeth within the girl's flesh, until the cries of agony ceased abruptly. Slowly, carefully, she slipped her fangs in a little further, and the girl moaned.

The woman smiled against her neck.

She knew what she liked.


	2. Chapter 1 - The Corridor

**Disclaimer: Don't own Sherlock**

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Chapter 1 - The Corridor

The blood flowed thick and fast across his fangs, so fresh, so _warm_. Their current case had only been brought to their attention two days ago, and it was nearly finished; his hunger had not yet been bothering him, and he merely needed a couple of mouthfuls of the delicious crimson to stop it from becoming bad enough to be distracting, but the doctor had insisted that he eat before the case was finished. He gulped down the relatively small amount of blood before retracting his fangs and licking the two puncture marks to heal them.

"Come on," he ordered John as he straightened himself up, "to Bart's."

"What about a bandage?" John asked as he pointed at the two ugly red marks on his wrist. Sherlock had already thrown his coat on over his shoulders and was in the process of fastening his scarf around his neck. The detective turned back to the doctor, wearing a confused expression.

"They're only on your wrist. It's too cold for you to be rolling up your sleeve. They'll be well hidden." He finished with his scarf and pulled the door open. "Come on." And he left without a further world, leaving the door open for John to follow.

John was paranoid the entire journey to Bart's. The gaze of everyone who passed them seemed to fall to his wrist, as though everyone suddenly had X-ray vision and could see through the fabric of his jacket sleeve to the marks underneath. No one mentioned them – after all, they were, as Sherlock put it, 'well hidden'; it was just in his head.

They were safe.

They walked in silence down the long corridor to the morgue, to perform the final experiment that would bring their case to a close. John expected Sherlock to burst through the double doors to the lab as always, but when the detective saw Molly through the window in the door, he stopped abruptly and turned, grabbing John by the arm and pulling him to the wall as he turned his back to the door.

"Sherlock?" John began. The detective had a strange look in his eye: a distant look that held a deep-seated anger. "What's going on?"

"A vampire has been here," Sherlock explained in a hushed voice.

"Well, yeah, you come here all the time," John joked, but the detective gave him a look of such dangerous impatience that the smile was wiped off of his face. Sherlock's expression was hard, like steel, and when he spoke, his voice was filled with a terrifying concealed fury.

"A vampire has been feeding off of Molly."

John's brow furrowed in confusion; why would this cause such strong emotion within the usually stoic detective? "Molly is someone's volens? Whose?"

Sherlock shook his head frantically, in that impatient way that willed John to understand something quickly. "I do not believe that she is giving her blood voluntarily."

A sick feeling sank into the pit of John's stomach. He looked through the lab window at the pathologist. "How can you be so sure?"

"All the signs of regular feeding are there," Sherlock waved away the question casually. "Fatigue, paleness, a slowness in her movements. While all of those symptoms could be indicative of insomnia or general sleep deprivation, she has no dark circles beneath her eyes.

"She does, however, have a patch of skin near the bottom of her neck that is slightly raised from the rest. Do you see?"

John peered through the window, but from this distance and at this angle, he could see nothing of the sort; he shook his head.

"No," he admitted. "Why, what does that mean?" he asked, turning back to Sherlock.

"It means a vampire has been covering up its bite marks with flesh-coloured bandages," the detective scoffed. "If Molly was a volens, the vampire would have no need to use them; they would have been able to trust Molly to aid them in concealing the marks. These kind of flesh-coloured bandages are rare, not to mention expensive, and so whoever this is wants to keep their presence completely secret."

"But why would a vampire keep going back to the same person to feed, if that person wasn't willing?"

Sherlock shrugged. "An easy food source, perhaps one who is easy to overpower. That may have been the case here, though only for the initial feeding; despite how simple it can be to sneak up on an unsuspecting human, Molly would have been expecting an attack after they had visited her once, and she's a strong girl – she could fight off someone of average height and weight with minimum effort if they tried to feed off of her again.

"No… they are using a far more manipulative tactic to ensure that they can keep returning to the same food source."

John waited for Sherlock to explain what this 'manipulative tactic' was, but after ten seconds of silence he got impatient and decided to push the detective into speaking.

Sherlock sighed, shifting uncomfortably. "There is… a range of feelings when a vampire feeds. The vampire can… _influence_ how having a pair of fangs in one's neck, or wrist, or… whatever, feels to the human off of whom they are feeding. These feelings range from complete agony to almost orgasmic levels of pleasure. When I feed off of you, I ensure that I remain in the centre of the spectrum – neither unpleasant, nor… awkwardly enjoyable. No doubt whoever is feeding off of Molly has been using feelings closer to the latter end of the spectrum."

John exhaled loudly, taking a moment to digest this information. "So…" he began slowly, "what are you planning on doing about it? If you're planning on doing anything at all."

Sherlock glared at him with a glare that said, 'Of course I'm going to do something about it. Don't be stupid, John, I thought you were above such things.'

"Firstly," Sherlock muttered, "I am going to solve this case."

With that, he whipped round on his heel and pushed through the double doors into the lab, acting much the part of his usual demanding self. If it hadn't been for their discussion in the corridor, John would have felt that this was just a normal trip to the morgue – if such things existed. Yet, as it were, the doctor found himself constantly taking sideways glances at the pathologist to try to ascertain for himself whether any of what Sherlock had deduced was correct. It undoubtedly was, but even so, he found it uneasy, if not hard, to believe.

The case was finished by mid-afternoon, and – after a late lunch at Angelo's – the pair returned to 221b. John headed straight for the kitchen to make a cup of tea, while Sherlock hung up his coat and scarf and sat down on the edge of the sofa with his phone poised in his hand.

_Leave her alone. – SH_

The reply came back seconds later.

_No._


	3. Chapter 2 - The Final Attack

**Disclaimer: Don't own Sherlock**

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Chapter 2 - The Final Attack

Over the next couple of weeks, Sherlock was engrossed in tracking the vampire who had been feeding off of Molly. They had finished the last case – that final experiment proving that it had, indeed, been the victim's former employee who had been dismayed about being fired and having to go to work for a pharmaceutical company – and they had not taken on any since. Lestrade had offered them a few, but the ones that Sherlock had deemed interesting enough to be worthy of his time, he had sent John on instead. The detective himself merely stayed in the flat, pacing and checking his phone every so often. Even so, despite not having taken on anything new, he had not complained of being bored once, and had not begun any experiments.

He was, indeed, not bored – he was furious.

He had been texting the predatory vampire for two weeks, and had received no indication that they had any intention to stop feeding off of Molly. He had no pretence by which to go to Bart's to check up on the pathologist, and he knew that Lestrade was starting to get suspicious about him not taking any cases. Not to mention John was angry at him for sending him on cases when he had a job to go to as well.

"You could quit your job and consult full-time!" Sherlock had yelled after he had taken the second case file out of Lestrade's hand and shoved it into John's hands.

"I don't have a trust fund, Sherlock! If I don't work, I wouldn't be able to afford to live here!"

With all these things going on – not to mention the danger that Molly was in just by being the unwilling but regular food source of a predatory vampire – Sherlock needed to stop this as soon as possible.

The most infuriating thing was that, even though he knew exactly who the vampire was, he couldn't do a thing about it. The vampire did not visit the morgue in a pattern that could be tracked, and Sherlock couldn't lie in wait for them every night – while he considered it only transport, he had to admit that he needed to sleep sometime.

Exactly fifteen days after he had noticed that the vampire had been feeding off of Molly, they finally replied to his texts.

_Will you be visiting tonight? – SH_

_Yes. I've been injured._

Those words sent an unexpected wave of panic rushing over him.

_I've been injured_.

Not only would that mean that the vampire would need to take more blood than usual – which was very dangerous for Molly – but an injured vampire would not be able to make the feeding anything less than agonising.

He looked at the time on his phone: it was nearing ten o' clock. He may be able to get to Bart's before the vampire did, but in all likelihood he would be beaten to the hospital. The vampire could have been outside the door when they had sent that text, or a mere few minutes away… He could get Molly out of here before the predator arrived, but in order to have any hope of doing so, they would have to leave _now_.

"John!" Sherlock shouted, launching himself from the sofa and heading straight for the coat rack.

"What?" the doctor asked impatiently, stumbling down the stairs from his bedroom. "What's going on?"

"Get your jacket on," Sherlock ordered, throwing said jacket in John's direction; the doctor caught it with a perplexed expression on his face. "We can catch the vampire who has been feeding off of Molly, but we need to get to Bart's as quickly as possible."

He was in such a hurry that he didn't wait for his flatmate to get his jacket on as he flung himself through the front door and into the night. He hailed down the first cab that passed and barked the address at the driver, drumming his fingers impatiently on the seat beside him as they drove.

"Who is it?" John asked, though his voice was muffled behind the thoughts running through Sherlock's head. The detective didn't answer, and John took his silence to mean that he wished for quiet, which he mercifully provided.

It took longer than he wanted to get to the hospital – no longer than it usually did, but that was far too long given the circumstances. When the cab pulled up, Sherlock threw himself out of the vehicle and strode purposefully towards the hospital. John was at his side again within seconds, looking slightly disgruntled but determined nonetheless.

"They're already here," Sherlock explained, hoping that speaking, feeling the vibrations of his voice reverberating through his body, would help serve to calm his nerves, "and they're injured. That is-"

"Bad news," John finished, interrupting. Thankfully, John had stopped asking Sherlock how he came to know most things a long time ago, which was certainly convenient in their current situation; unbeknownst to the doctor, just how Sherlock knew the location and condition of the vampire in question would create more questions than it would answer. For now, he just needed to know that the vampire was perhaps more dangerous now than they had ever been before.

When they had reached the lower levels of the hospital, they were greeted by an eerie atmosphere which seemed to fill the corridors. The silence was almost audible, tension thrumming through the air as though it were drum and bass being pounded through nightclub speakers. The footsteps of the two men clattered on the floor, bouncing off of the walls. There was no sign, other than the fact that they were bathed in artificial lights from above, that anyone else was there at all. Sherlock's heart sank; if they were not in the corridors, then they were already too late…

Knowing that he would almost certainly be putting the human in no greater danger by sending him off on his own, Sherlock suggested that he had John split up to search the corridors surrounding Molly's lab. When the detective was alone, he found that he could hear his heart pounding in his chest, a terror pumping through his body that he recognised, having felt it a finite number of times before, but it never ceased to amaze him that he was capable of feeling such an incapacitating emotion.

The hospital had never seemed as big as it did that night: the corridors seemed to be endless, the furthest wall like that of the horizon, always in the distance and never getting any nearer, and they seemed to have doubled in number since he had last been there. Each second that passed, an eternity in itself, only served to increase his unease; he could hear nothing but his own footsteps as he patrolled the hallways, and he had no indication that the vampire was even still there.

After what seemed like an impossible age, he turned the corner and found himself in a corridor that had a back door of sorts into Molly's lab. He had never used this entrance – he had never needed to – but he picked up his pace until he could see through the windows in the door to the lab clearly.

The sight that greeted him made him stop in his tracks. At some level, he had always known that it was the case, but to actually see the evidence of it for himself…

They were too late.

The vampire was already there, her fangs embedded deep in the throat of the pathologist. Molly was facing the window, her features contorted in an agonised grimace, but when she saw Sherlock, a glimmer of hope began to shine in her eyes.

The detective forced his legs to propel him forward, slamming against the door to open it…

There was a loud clunk as the door protested, its lock preventing it from budging. Growling in frustration, Sherlock pulled a lock pick from his pocket. He glanced up through the window as he worked the lock; Molly had paled considerably, and with every second that passed, her condition would only get worse.

When the lock clicked satisfyingly, he shoved the door open.

"Irene!" he shouted, but the vampire fled the moment that door opened. Fuelled with the newfound strength from her feeding, she flung herself through the other door as her victim fell ungracefully to the floor, her head smacking against the floor with a sickening _thud_. As she raced out of the lab and down the corridor, a gunshot went off, but it slammed into the wall rather than the vampire.

"What the fuck?" Sherlock heard John exclaim in the corridor outside, and the detective knew that he would now have to explain how he had lied to him and deceived Mycroft, but right now he only had one major concern on his mind.

He dropped to his knees by Molly's side. Her breathing was fast and deep, blood still oozing lazily from the puncture wounds in her neck. He leaned down to run his tongue along them, sitting up just in time to see her eyes roll back into the back of her head as she lost consciousness.

"No…" he breathed, scooping her prone body into his arms and resting her forehead against his shoulder, one hand curling into her hair.

This was _not_ supposed to happen.

This was _never_ supposed to happen.

The door opened once more, the metal banging against the wall next to it, and a very confused John Watson, still holding his gun, stumbled through.

"Sherlock-" he began, but paused when he saw the scene before him: Sherlock, on his knees, cradling the unconscious form of Molly Hooper in his arms.

"She needs a transfusion," Sherlock explained, slightly amazed at how calm he sounded when his veins were being flooded with pure, liquid panic.

Wordlessly, John gestured to the corridor behind him. "That was-"

"I'll explain everything later," Sherlock snapped, desperate not to waste any more time; they had done that so much tonight already. "After. Okay?"

John looked from Sherlock, to Molly, to Sherlock, and nodded. "Okay."

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**A.N.:** Well, that's it! I have started writing the fourth part of this series, which will be a two-shot, Post-Fall AU. At this moment in time, I don't know when it will be posted, but I hope to get it up as soon as possible.

**UPDATE 01/02/14: **The next part of the Volens!Verse, A Higher Dose, is up now.


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